d he was by no means a stranger, having had occasion more
than once to deal with him, boy as he was, for complications with
riotous misdoings. He had happened to know, also, that it was Archie
McLeod who had been head and front of the last year's revolt in the
school,--the one boy that no teacher hitherto had been able to control.
And here stood Archie McLeod, rising in his place, leader of the form,
glancing down on the boys around him with the eye of a general, watching
the teacher's eye, meanwhile, as a dog watches for his master's signal.

And the orderly yet alert and joyously eager expression of the whole
school,--it had so much the look of a miracle to Sandy Bruce's eye,
that, not having been for years accustomed to the restraint and dignity
of school visitors, of technical official, he was on the point of giving
a loud whistle of astonishment Luckily recollecting himself in time, he
smothered the whistle and the "Whew! what's all this?" which had been on
his tongue's end, in a vigorous and unnecessary blowing of his nose. And
before that was over, and his eyes well wiped, there stood the whole
school on its feet before him, and the room ringing with such a chorus
as was never heard in a Prince Edward Island school-room before. This
completed his bewilderment, and swallowed it up in delight. If Sandy
Bruce had an overmastering passion in his rugged nature, it was for
music. To the sound of the bag-pipes he had often said he would march to
death and "not know it for dyin'." The drum and the fife could draw him
as quickly now as when he was a boy, and the sweet singing of a woman's
voice was all the token he wanted of the certainty of heaven and the
existence of angels.

When Little Bel's clear, flute-like soprano notes rang out, carrying
along the fifty young voices she led, Sandy jumped up on his feet,
waving his hand, in a sudden heat of excitement, right and left; and
looking swiftly all about him on the platform, he said: "It's not
sittin' we'es take such welcome as this, my neebors!" Each man and woman
there, catching the quick contagion, rose; and it was a tumultuous crowd
of glowing faces that pressed forward around the piano as the singing
went on,--fathers, mothers, rustics, all; and the children, pleased and
astonished, sang better than ever, and when the chorus was ended it was
some minutes before all was quiet.

Many things had been settled in that few minutes. John McDonald's heart
was at rest. "The